After the return to calm in the neighborhoods affected by urban violence, some teachers say they are helpless in the face of the anger increasingly expressed by the students.
They work around Paris, near Marseille, in Hauts-de-France or near Caen. For years, teachers have felt anger rising among students, even if calm seems to have returned to the neighborhoods most affected by urban violence in recent days. “They bear witness to the stigma they may experience in the field on a daily basis“, describes Laurène Thibaut, departmental secretary at Snes-Fsu in Hauts-de-Seine, even”discrimination that can be heard through different media, through the media for example“.
>> Riots: the government will distribute a leaflet to remind parents of their obligations
In his college in Colombes, a “establishment which is in priority education”the teacher history-geography and moral and civic teacher sometimes has trouble getting messages across: “When we talk about it, they are receptive to the great values of the Republic ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’, that, there is no doubt. Afterwards, it does not necessarily correspond to what they experience on a daily basis. All the violence, including police violence, which they witness, which they can observe in their neighborhood and which revolts them, they speak about it regularly.
“There are always students who come back to Adama Traoré, Zyed and Bouna…”
Laurene Thibautat franceinfo
“No wonder history repeats itself”
This other history teacher, who prefers to remain anonymous, was also able to speak with her students present in class about these two young people, who died in Clichy-sous-Bois during a police intervention in 2005: “the difference is still the support and the video testimony which changes everything and which can perhaps explain why the violence was so strong from the start“.
The teacher works in one of the 240 schools targeted during the riots. For her, “the problem is that they are always the same conditions. As long as the inequalities they suffer on the social, economic level, of access to higher education, to culture, will not be at least settled… It is unfortunately not surprising that history repeats itself given that the context is relatively similar.“
Some angry teachers, a minority among those who agreed to speak, also question the education of parents. All believe in any case that resources are needed in schools, associations or street educators to avoid a new outbreak of violence in the future.